The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

So it's fairly easy for communities to hide homelessness and drug use.  Police just harass/arrest homeless people, arrest anyone seen using drugs - basically send the message that you can't do such things where visible to the "normies".

That might be it. There's a lot of homelessness and visible. It's one of the biggest, most visible shifts of the last ten years of Tory rule - and there are addicts, as I say I live in a block where people pick up regularly.

I've just never seen shooting up on the streets - except in Glasgow.

[Barrister]

That might be it. There's a lot of homelessness and visible. It's one of the biggest, most visible shifts of the last ten years of Tory rule - and there are addicts, as I say I live in a block where people pick up regularly.

I've just never seen shooting up on the streets - except in Glasgow.

Homelessness has been a thing since forever, and we've seen increases in it from London, to Edmonton and Vancouver, to liberal strongholds like San Francisco.

I don't know the cause other than to point out we've seen a huge rise in synthetic opioids over the last ten years.  I'd never heard of such a thing when I started as a prosecutor.

[Sheilbh]

Homelessness has been a thing since forever, and we've seen increases in it from London, to Edmonton and Vancouver, to liberal strongholds like San Francisco.

I don't know the cause other than to point out we've seen a huge rise in synthetic opioids over the last ten years.  I'd never heard of such a thing when I started as a prosecutor.

I'm not sure - I think here there is a real political cause because visible homelessness was more or less eliminated by 2010. It was pretty rare to see rough sleepers in a way that it just isn't now. I've friends who've lived outside the UK since around about 2010-11 and they comment on how much that has changed - though from what I understand it is even worse in the US.

I imagine you're right on opioids. I've mentioned it before (and I know deaths is only one stat) but it's really amazing how different the stats are in Scotland. I've never really found a good explanation of why but one of the most interesting was that it's a legacy of different approaches to prescribing benzos in the 80s (most of the deaths are older men) in the NHS in Scotland which has left a big addiction legacy which is now causing a lot of deaths as those drugs interact with opioids:

[Admiral Yi]

When I lived in DC there were tons of panhandlers but only a handful of people sleeping rough.  Or at least visibly sleeping rough.

[Josquius]

In Newcastle there's a zero homelessness policy in place. Everyone is guaranteed a bed. There are maybe a handful of people who for various reasons avoid this but not many.
Nonetheless I was speaking to the manager of a large homeless shelter once and he mentioned its common that first thing in the morning he will see the people staying at his place head out with a sleeping bag to beg.

The best approach to tackling homelessness I've heard of is in Finland where they've had great success with a housing first approach. This is what a lot of cities in the UK like Newcastle are trying to copy.

[Barrister]

In Newcastle there's a zero homelessness policy in place. Everyone is guaranteed a bed. There are maybe a handful of people who for various reasons avoid this but not many.
Nonetheless I was speaking to the manager of a large homeless shelter once and he mentioned its common that first thing in the morning he will see the people staying at his place head out with a sleeping bag to beg.

The best approach to tackling homelessness I've heard of is in Finland where they've had great success with a housing first approach. This is what a lot of cities in the UK like Newcastle are trying to copy.

Okay, but even if you sleep in a homeless shelter, you're still homeless.

As I understand it in Edmonton they won't turn anyone away but still plenty chose not to go to shelters.  Shelters insist you not be visibly intoxicated (for the safety of other guests) plus you can't bring in big shopping carts full of stuff.

And I understand the appeal of "Housing First" - but if you're putting up someone with active mental health / drug addictions in housing how do you ensure they don't just trash the place?  It's a story I've heard several times - homeless person jumps through the hoops, gets housing, invites friends over, the place gets trashed, and they're back on the streets.

[The Larch]

The best approach to tackling homelessness I've heard of is in Finland where they've had great success with a housing first approach. This is what a lot of cities in the UK like Newcastle are trying to copy.

Doesn't Finland basically have cops roaming the streets in the evenings press-ganging any homeless person they find on a shelter for the night? Over there it's almost a necessity, as those people could realistically freeze to death on winter nights.

[PDH]

Santa Cruz actually hit the state mandate for ability to house homeless, yet plenty do not wish to go.  For some of the reasons given here: you can't be high, drunk, or commit violence in shelters or voucher hotels.  Other reasons stated in the paper include refusals because one must bathe and be clean, prostitution is not allowed, and the biggest one "where will I keep my stuff?"

Endemic homelessness is a tough nut.

[Admiral Yi]

Institutionalization.

[Sheilbh]

Doesn't Finland basically have cops roaming the streets in the evenings press-ganging any homeless person they find on a shelter for the night? Over there it's almost a necessity, as those people could realistically freeze to death on winter nights.

Every homeless person was sheltered in the UK during covid lockdowns. It's a political choice that we have rough sleepers.

[Admiral Yi]

Every homeless person was sheltered in the UK during covid lockdowns. It's a political choice that we have rough sleepers.

Nonresponsive to Larch's point about coercion.

[Jacob]

I don't know the cause other than to point out we've seen a huge rise in synthetic opioids over the last ten years.  I'd never heard of such a thing when I started as a prosecutor.

I'm sure synthetic opioids haven't helped, but I expect that a bigger driving force is the vast increase in housing costs relative to income.

When I first moved to Vancouver and hung out in the punk rock scene I new a non-trivial number of junkies, and knew of many more as part of the larger young person / hard drinking / punk rock scene. Every one of them were housed.

IMO blaming drugs is a red herring. It's all about affordability and availability of housing (which is why there's a non-trivial number of homeless folks who are pensioners, f. ex. whose pension payments do not allow them to afford housing).

EDIT: IMO if people could get reasonably housed on 30ish% of their minimum wage jobs and/ or 50ish% of their social handouts for those who cannot hold down a job, we wouldn't have much of a homeless problem. We just don't have public policies that support that, so we have homelessness.

[DGuller]

Is it the homelessness that's getting worse, or that it's more difficult to not see the homeless?  To the extent that the latter is the problem, I think that the crackdown on police brutality is partly responsible.  I think in the past it was easier for police to harass the homeless to not be an eyesore, not in good neighborhoods anyway.  I also imagine that when it comes to homeless people, even many of the advocates of police accountability would secretly hope that police doesn't feel too accountable when taking care of the homeless people.

[Jacob]

Is it the homelessness that's getting worse, or that it's more difficult to not see the homeless?  To the extent that the latter is the problem, I think that the crackdown on police brutality is partly responsible.  I think in the past it was easier for police to harass the homeless to not be an eyesore, not in good neighborhoods anyway.  I also imagine that when it comes to homeless people, even many of the advocates of police accountability would secretly hope that police doesn't feel too accountable when taking care of the homeless people.

What's your hypothesis here? That there's no real change in homelessness, but rather it's that the police is less heavy-handed and abusive so "regular folks" see more homeless than "we used to back in the day"?

[DGuller]

Is it the homelessness that's getting worse, or that it's more difficult to not see the homeless?  To the extent that the latter is the problem, I think that the crackdown on police brutality is partly responsible.  I think in the past it was easier for police to harass the homeless to not be an eyesore, not in good neighborhoods anyway.  I also imagine that when it comes to homeless people, even many of the advocates of police accountability would secretly hope that police doesn't feel too accountable when taking care of the homeless people.

What's your hypothesis here? That there's no real change in homelessness, but rather it's that the police is less heavy-handed and abusive so "regular folks" see more homeless than "we used to back in the day"?

Hypothesis would be too strong a word.  I don't know if the homelessness really is increasing, but that doesn't mean that I'm hypothesizing that it's not increasing.  It's something that needs to be looked into rather than assumed.

I do think that police being more gun-shy, or being maliciously compliant with policies, depending on how you want to look at it, plays a big part in the general perception of people that quality of life is going down the tubes.